— Former presidential candidate John Edwards claims that protection against self-incrimination in his campaign finance prosecution should prevent an attempt to depose him in a separate case involving a purported sex tape made with his mistress. Edwards said in court filings in a North Carolina state court this week that a scheduled June 20 deposition should wait until after the federal criminal case against him concludes. Edwards is entitled to the stay "in order to protect ...

The same Durham area taxi driver cited as an alibi witness for accused Duke university lacrosse player Reade Seligmann may end up hurting some aspects of the defense's argument that no rape at all occurred at the off-campus party that night. Called in by investigators in the Duke rape case for the first time Tuesday, taxi driver Moez Mostafa told TIME in an exclusive interview, he stated he saw exotic dancer Kim Roberts exchange angry words with ...

New Orleans is having a bad case of nerves. The Mississippi River has flooded catastrophically upstream and its swelling waters are moving inexorably down toward the Big Easy — and its traumatic memories of recent disasters, Katrina and the Gulf oil spill. "We're in a weird situation," observes Linda Jackson, an activist in the Lower Ninth Ward. Her district is particularly anxious: the neighborhood has two functioning bridges from which people can see the swelling Mississippi. The ...

A few weeks ago, Lawyer Percy Foreman wearily confided to a friend that James Earl Ray would be his last client in a criminal case. From now on, said Foreman, he would confine his activities to only a few civil suits. "I am 66 years old," he explained, "and I don't need money. So why should I expose myself to the agony of criminal cases?" Last week, however, after successfully copping a controversial plea for Ray, Foreman was obviously feeling ...

Amid the throngs of gamblers in Atlantic City, Debra Kim Cohen stood out. A former beauty queen, she dropped thousands of dollars at blackjack tables. Casino managers acknowledged her lavish patronage by plying her with the perks commonly accorded VIP customers: free limo rides, meals, even rooms. Cohen, after all, was a high roller. It apparently did not disturb casino officials that she was also a teenager and -- at 17 -- four years shy of New Jersey's legal gambling ...

Here's the worst-case scenario: sometime soon, workers at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant will realize they can't pump seawater into the cores of the wrecked reactors fast enough to keep up with the steady heating. The temperature in the core will exceed 5,000°F , causing hundreds of uranium fuel rods to slump to the bottom of the containment vessel like melted wax. The fuel will burn through the foundation of the plant, sinking into the ground and contaminating the ...

Facing reductions in state funding, public universities from Michigan to Arizona to North Carolina have slashed budgets and hiked tuition. The most extreme case is California where University of California regents voted this week to increase tuition a whopping 32% to more than $10,000 annually — a three-fold increase in a decade. The move was greeted by student demonstrations. During two days of protests at UCLA, where the UC regents met to vote on the fee increase, about 2,000 students from the 10-campus system confronted riot ...

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic on Monday refused to appear at the opening day of his long-awaited trial for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.In a letter dated Wednesday and made public Thursday, Karadzic complains that he has not been given the relevant case material on time -- and he says the volume of material would have been too much to go through even if he had received it promptly. "I ask Your Excellencies -- why and how ...

Disgraced South Korean cloning researcher Hwang Woo-suk on Monday was convicted of embezzling money and illegally buying human eggs, according to state media.In a letter dated Wednesday and made public Thursday, Karadzic complains that he has not been given the relevant case material on time -- and he says the volume of material would have been too much to go through even if he had received it promptly. "I ask Your Excellencies -- why and how is it possible that ...

The girlfriend of former NFL quarterback Steve McNair had grown frustrated with their relationship and was struggling with financial difficulties in the days before she killed him and herself in July. Details of their relationship were revealed in a case summary released by Nashville police Monday. McNair, 36, and Sahel Kazemi, 20, were found fatally shot in a condominium in downtown Nashville on July 4. Police have since ruled their deaths a murder-suicide. "My life is just s--- and I ...